sallonoroff

hello world. (2)

2018-03-23T23:39:00+00:00

You may have noticed that things started to look a little different around here a few days ago. It’s not just the (style)sheets that have been changed though — the whole backend of this thing is different. I’ve ditched the self-hosted Wordpress installation and moved everything over to Jekyll, atop GitHub Pages. I thought that warranted use of another Hello World.

I’ll spare you the full details of how I shifted everything over to Jekyll — it’s not a particularly unique undertaking¹ — suffice to say, this tool dealt with converting the 380 existing posts and, after one false-start trying to build it from scratch, Poole provided the basis of the new site. So the basic setup really took no time at all. Of course, it took quite a bit longer to get the site looking and functioning how I wanted, and there are still quite a few minor things left to sort out².

The change is primarily a cost-saving exercise, since I really don’t write that much here anymore, but also a time-saving one too hopefully. I won’t have to work on keeping Wordpress (and a variety of plugins and themes) up-to-date. Nor will I have to worry too much about taking regularly backups. Furthermore, dear reader, you should find the site to be a whole lot snappier, thanks to it all being static HTML and CSS, served from GitHub’s network. On the down side, there’s no more commenting on posts (and i’ve lost all the old comments), i’ve currently no analytics to monitor visitor numbers³, and the blog’s rss feed has had to change.

Anyway, I hope you like the changes overall. And if you spot anything that looks broken, it probably is, so please let me know.

I’ve saved a list of guides and other people’s blog posts that helped me to the repository’s Readme file, if you’re interested. ↩
I’m not entirely happy with post layout, there are some broken video embeds, image-handling in the imported posts needs sorting out, lots of footnotes want neatening up, there are far too many tags, etc etc… ↩
Long-time readers will recall I was using Wordpress Stats, after removing Google Analytics, but of course that’s no longer possible. It’s a little disappointing to find that GitHub Pages doesn’t have some sort of basic statistics. ↩

Using AppleScript to collect data from your inbox.

2017-03-12T17:15:55+00:00

There are a host of ways of finding out where the cheapest fuel is for sale near you. I’ve been subscribed to PetrolPrices.com’s notifications for years and years, and occasionally even look at the emails. On one such day, realising I had quite the history of local at-the-pump prices, I wondered if I could easily collate and chart this data¹. Being sat at a Mac, I turned to AppleScript.

I’d never written any AppleScript before but I knew it must be fairly straightforward to do what I wanted. The basic script that I eventually cobbled together simply loops through all the emails in a set Apple Mail mailbox, taking the subject line and date stamp of each message, then dumps this info into a CSV file. Here’s the relevent code²…

tell application "Mail"
	set theMailbox to mailbox "testing" -- CHANGE THIS VALUE TO ALTER THE TARGET MAILBOX
	set messageCount to count of messages in theMailbox -- Find out how many emails there are
end tell

set filePath to (path to desktop as text) & "output.csv" -- SETS OUTPUT LOCATION AND FILE NAME

repeat with counter from 1 to messageCount -- Loop through all the emails
	tell application "Mail"
		set theMessage to message counter of theMailbox -- Pick the next email
		set msgSubject to subject of theMessage -- Gets the email subject
		set tempDate to date received of theMessage -- Gets the date and time
		set msgDate to date string of tempDate -- Strips the time bit from it
	end tell
	
	set theString to "Message " & counter & " of " & messageCount & "," & msgSubject & "," & msgDate & return -- Builds a line of the information we want
	
	set theResult to writeTo(filePath, theString, text, true) -- Save the line to file
	if not theResult then display dialog "There was an error writing data!"
end repeat

The output from my script (the CSV file) is rather messy, containing as it does the whole subject lines, but for me this was easier to deal with afterwards than trying to work out how to run pattern-matching in the AppleScript to remove the chaff. I was also extremely fortunate that PetrolPrices included a fuel price in their email subject line, otherwise I would have had to work out that pattern-matching stuff to search the email body text for the price (and probably given up).

Anyway, post-manual-processing of the output file, here’s the historical petrol price graph that I was able to produce with the gathered data…³

For motorists, that line is a bit depressing. For me, it’s pleasingly similar to this one.

Strictly speaking, the PetrolPrices.com terms and conditions probably forbid me from doing any of this. Back in the real world, however, I don’t see why the company would have any cause for complaint with the above. If you work at PetrolPrices and disagree, please get in touch. ↩
If you want to use it, you might like to fetch the full, plaintext version which will be viewable in-browser but that can also be opened in OS X’s Script Editor. It also shows the important file-writing function. ↩
For those wondering why a post published in March 2017 has a graph that only runs to April 2016… Well, that’s because PetrolPrices changed the format of their emails and my previous luck around inclusion of a price in the subject line ran out. Maybe I’ll work out the required regex/sed/grep/etc for version 2 of my script. (Holding your breath would be ill advised.) ↩

In Case of Emergency.

2016-05-02T17:15:30+00:00

Remember in the olden days when you used to stick “ICE” onto names in your phone’s addressbook to denote an emergency contact? I’ve no clue if the emergency services ever made use of that information, but it was a well-meaning idea that took hold at some point¹. Certainly, my wife still has me down as “ICE Mark” in her mobile. Only, in the age of smartphones, that’s no use now is it? She has an iPhone that (correctly) will more than likely be locked should she not be in a position to provide emergency contact details herself.

Clearly the ICE system needs revising for the modern, secure mobile. Fortunately, Apple’s iOS already has a solution to this: Medical ID.

Introduced in 2014 with the Health app in iOS 8, Medical ID allows the iPhone owner’s medical information – including emergency contact details – to be displayed on an otherwise locked device with just a few taps. Perfect.

I won’t bother repeating the details of how to set it up when good guides already exist, just make sure you take 5 minutes to follow those instructions. And then spread the word. After all, if you didn’t know about Medical ID, chances are your friends and family don’t either.

possibly after the 7/7 attacks in London. ↩

Further duplication.

2016-05-02T00:29:48+00:00

I’ve no further insight into why this happens, but here’s another example of the same idea being independently germinated at around the same time.

Compare and contrast: Qubic Modular Power System and YOUMO Smart Modular Power Strip

Curious. I like both, by the way. And that the YOUMO raised €177,000 on Kickstarter against a 50K target suggests this sort of thing should have been made years ago. (It definitely should.)

…

PS. Funnily enough, I also came across this Kickstarter for “Splyt Light”, which instantly reminded me of Peter Larkam’s Branch (touched upon in that original “On ideas” post), only it’s a bit more practical and far less pretty.

…

PPS. I just noticed that since the Branch lighting system, Peter Larkam has had a go at designing a modular smartphone and that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Click concept produced by his former classmate Oliver Rooker. Plagiarism or inspiration? Intentional or unconscious? The only thing I’m certain of any more is this topic opening many cans of worms.

Another camera that follows you.

2016-05-01T21:52:32+00:00

Almost a year ago I wrote about the Lily camera – a drone that automatically follows you around, photographing and filming your every move. It looked amazing in the marketing video but far from ready in a hands-on video I had found. It was due to ship February 2016 but at the time of writing still isn’t available.

You might recall, I also commented on the similar Hexo+ drone, which was more expensive (and required a separate Go Pro camera purchase) but also a bit more polished. Clearly it was: the Hexo+ is now available to buy (for a cool $1000).

Today I want to mention another of these follow-me drones I just learnt about: Hover Camera by Zero Zero Robotics. This thing appears to be more floating selfie-stick than the automatic outdoor-adventure cameraman of the Lily or Hexo+, but it’s equally impressive:

Sure that’s glossy promotional material by Zero Zero themselves, but go take a look at the hands-on feature that Engadget have published too. I remain impressed. The video footage captured by the drone definitely looks like it still needs work (I see much stuttering), but it’s small and light and the follow-me features look great. So, yet another to keep an eye on.

When the OS X Installer can’t be verified.

2016-02-22T13:22:44+00:00

So you’ve got an OS X installer app saved (or maybe you’ve followed some instructions and made yourself a bootable USB drive for installing Mac OS X), used it a few times without any issue, forgotten about it, then some time later tried to use it again and run into an error message like this…

This copy of the Install OS X El Capitan application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading.

(Obviously “El Capitan” here could just as easily be the name of any of the versions of OS X that have been released via the Mac App Store - Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan.)

…and now you’re wondering what’s going on?

You’ll quickly find lots of helpful stuff online suggesting that this problem can be rectified by changing your Mac’s system date¹. And, as far as I can tell, that’s exactly right. That does work. But some people have success with setting the clock to the current date, while others report that the system date already is correct and they’re having to set it to a date in the past to get anywhere. Well, after lots of scouring, here’s the best explanation I’ve found, buried in the middle the comments section of an OSXdaily.com article:

[…] the reason why you get the error (and it’s not because it’s “buggy”) is because the installer app is digitally signed with a certificate (along with every other Mac App Store app, and others app you might download), every certificate has two immutable dates built into it, a “not valid until” (Start) date, and a “valid until” (End) date.

When you run an app, it verifies the digital signature/certificate, and part of this validation is checking the date bounds, if your computer is set to an invalid date such as 1984… It’s going to fail to verify the certificate.

Right, so thanks to Russell, we now know there’s actually a window of validity on these installers. So if you’re saving them outside the Applications folder (so that they don’t get auto-deleted after use) or making bootable USB drives with them, you’re probably going to need to download fresh copies from the App Store when required, or temporarily set your system date to a point approximately around the time you originally downloaded it. You did make a note of that, right?

…

Update: I stumbled across this page which says the certificate used to sign Mac App Store downloads expired on 15th February 2016. This coincides perfectly with my own problems. So, if you don’t want to mess about temporarily altering your Mac’s date when you need to install, go download fresh copies from the MAS (now signed until 7th February 2023).

Oh, but if you do want/need to check the certificate start/end dates of an installer you already have saved, throw this command into Terminal and scan the resulting output:

openssl pkcs7 -inform der -in /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt -print_certs -text

(This example checks the Mavericks installer in the Applications folder. Adjust the path accordingly for your own needs.)

You can change the date via System Preferences if you still have a working OS X installation aboard the Mac, or by using the ‘date’ command in Terminal if you’re having to boot from a createinstallmedia-made USB drive. ↩

Make a bootable USB drive with createinstallmedia.

2015-11-23T14:24:13+00:00

If you’re a Mac user, it can’t have escaped your attention that all updates to OS X come via the Mac App Store nowadays. Most of the time this is great – a welcome advance in the software world – but sometimes, like when you need to re-install the whole OS, a 5GB download isn’t particularly convenient. Especially if you’ve a flakey internet connection. Or if your only means of downloading the file is the computer in front of you that needs said OS installation.

So the answer? Bootable USB installers for OS X. Download that 5GB file once, then use any old USB stick¹ with Apple’s createinstallmedia utility to create a bootable drive you can use again and again. And again. Apple even provides the instructions on how to do this. Lovely stuff.

If you want a bit more hand-holding through the process then I heartily recommend Dan Frakes’ how-to guides over at Macworld. These are particularly useful if you need to make a drive for installing OS X Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8), since the createinstallmedia tool didn’t exist back then and the process is a little different (but no more difficult). Here are the necessary links:

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks

Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

And if you’re hoping to make a bootable USB installer for Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) then there is, sort of, a way to do it. You’ll need an image of the Snow Leopard install DVD first though, of course. Take a look at this Macworld article for instructions.

Your USB stick needs to have space to fit the OS X installer – so at least 8GB. And make sure you’ve nothing precious saved on it, because it will get blanked during this procedure. You might also want to find one that has decent read/write speeds, since this will reduce the amount of time it takes to create a bootable installer and to install OS X onto to your Mac. ↩

Download YouTube videos without dodgy software.

2015-11-16T14:07:06+00:00

You’ve found a video on Youtube that you’d like to download to watch later offline. Or maybe you want to save a copy of a YouTube video for posterity. Or perhaps you uploaded a clip to YouTube and no longer have the original but want one. So, how do you do that? Well, there are hundreds of free programs, websites and browser toolbars, add-ons, add-ins and extensions that purport to help you do this. The problem with the majority of these is that they’re plain useless if you’re lucky and serve-up malware if you’re not.

Fortunately, there’s a fairly simple way to do it using just your web browser of choice and the free, open-source, cross-platform and generally awesome VLC media player:

Copy the URL of the YouTube video you’re wanting to save
Start VLC and go to “Open Network…”
Paste in the youtube link, then click Open
The video will start playing. Pause it and go to the media information window
The “Location” field should contain a (long, complicated-looking) URL – this is a link to the actual video file – copy it
Now go back to your browser, paste that URL into the address bar and hit enter
You have video! (depending on browser used the file will either ask to be saved or start playing automatically, in which case you can just do File > Save As)

I’m not sure what the container and video format are of these saved files are yet but they play happily enough in VLC. It would be nice to know though – please let me know if you work it out!

The other limitation of this method that you should be aware of is that there’s no way choosing video quality – again, shout up if you know how to get at one of the particular qualities that YouTube has stored.

If the above looks too convoluted for you, then you might try youtubeinmp4.com, which, despite being covered in ads and looking a bit dodgy, does appear to do something extremely similar but makes the process as simple as pasting in the YouTube link. I’ve grabbed a few videos using the site and, as far as I can tell, not caught anything nasty. Your mileage may vary, of course. Obviously you should take precautions before visiting the site, just in case.

…

Update: Alternatively, saveitoffline.com looks like an even better website to try if you don’t fancy the VLC option. Just paste in the vid URL and you’re presented with links to all the various formats and qualities that YouTube has available for that clip. I’m not sure you could want for more.

Cheapest headphones.

2015-07-08T21:20:00+00:00

After discovering that decent headphones could be had for as little as £6, I started wondering what the very cheapest headphones would sound like. And where I might source them. Amazon and eBay have plenty of tiny-budget offerings but if I wanted something truly dirt cheap I needed to eliminate postage costs. With this in mind, I set my sights on high street tat retailer Poundland and the exciting low-cost wonders I might find dumped in their technology aisle… But I never got that far, instead spotting some ‘phones quite by chance in rival austerity bazaar B&M. Ninety-nine pence later I was the proud owner of some Maxell EB-95 (190560) earphones. Here’s a quick review.

If you were hoping for me to write anything positive about the EB-95s then let me start this with the only thing I have for you: they don’t immediately sound dreadful. Don’t misunderstand, they are bad, but you might not realise how bad if you’ve nothing to compare them with. Spoken word is actually listenable through these but any sort of music just sounds distant, washy and several other kinds of awful. No, I wouldn’t call myself an audiophile but I do know that audio-wise these earphones are sorely lacking in, well, everything.

Don’t worry too much about the poor sound quality though because you’ll probably not be able to use them anyway. Firstly, at about 90cm in length, the cord is far, far too short to really use the headphones in any practical, meaningful way. And secondly, even if you can deal with the short cord, the hard plastic rest-in-your-ear buds are painfully uncomfortable to wear for any more than about 10 minutes. A truly unpleasant experience.

In conclusion, if you’re absolutely desperate then I can confirm that Maxell’s EB-95s do work. But ultimately you might just be better off being that inconsiderate dick who plays music through his phone’s speaker in public.

Panasonic RP-HJE125 earphones.

2015-07-03T17:36:40+00:00

There was a time when a gold bikini brought in most of my site’s traffic but now i’d say its definitely all about the Cheap Headphones. Apparently people are very interested in Panasonic’s RP-HJE125 earphones and I imagine that is because of the Wirecutter’s recommendation in their “Best In-Ear Headphones Under $30” review¹. So, despite being quite happy with my RHAs, I bought a pair of the Panasonics to test – at just £6 it was hard not to. Here are my thoughts after more than a year’s use of them.

Let’s start with the most important aspect – sound quality. As the Wirecutter reviewers suggested, it is good. Very good. The bass is perhaps not as deep as with the RHA MA350s but I find them to provide good clear sound.

In terms of build quality, the earbuds are light but feel sturdy enough. They fit my ear nicely but it’s worth noting that the slightly odd shaped design might not suit everyone. Also, despite being more obviously Left and Right than any other bud i’ve owned before, I still somehow manage to try putting them the wrong way around every time. The cord used by Panasonic looks and feels very cheap. In fact, I’m not sure it could look worse. It also tangles very easily and, personally, I find it slightly too short a lot of time, unable to reach from my head to deep trouser pockets. But all this said, more than 12 months down the line, it’s all still working fine and showing no signs of wear. Thankfully the plain cord construction also means there’s not much cable-rub noise, but they are in-ear headphones so a little disturbance is inevitable. It’s safe to say you wouldn’t want to run wearing these.

When I originally mentioned these headphones, I noted that the US version (RP-TCM125) seemed to have in-line mic while the UK version did not. I can now confirm this is indeed the case, if that’s a deal-breaker for you.

So, overall verdict? While I have a few minor gripes, they’re all very easily forgiven on a pair of earphones that sound so good but cost so little. I think you can definitely trust the Wirecutter’s decision on these.

They’ve since updated the original article and the old version doesn’t appear anywhere on the Wirecutter site sadly. It’s now “Best In-Ear Headphones under $40” and the Panasonics no longer take the top spot, though they do still get an honourable mention. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine has a copy of the original text saved at https://web.archive.org/web/20131217033758/http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-headphones-under-30/ ↩

The other camera that follows you.

2015-07-03T16:12:45+00:00

After recently writing about the Lily drone camera I was contacted by the PR people for Hexo+, who wanted to let me know about their very similar product. It’s pricier than the Lily and doesn’t include a camera (you have to attach your own GoPro to it) but it also looks like it is much nearer completion. See what you think:

Apple Airport firmware updates.

2015-07-03T15:52:55+00:00

If you’ve owned and operated an Apple Airport device for any length of time you’ll probably be aware that you can downgrade to older, previously-installed versions of firmware if you should ever need or want to. It’s a fairly trivial thing to do with Mac OS X’s Airport Utility – finding the feature is the hardest part!¹

But what about if you want to try an older firmware on an Airport that has only ever run the current version? Well, that’s a little bit less straight-forward… but not terribly difficult to do.

Firstly, take a peek at http://apsu.apple.com/version.xml. I can’t say for certain, but since it’s sitting there on an Apple webserver I guess this is how your Airport checks to see if there are any updates available. Regardless, this XML file provides links to a number of firmware files (“.basebinary”) for each Airport model.

Unfortunately, version.xml doesn’t use the Airport model names you’re familiar with. Instead it uses Product IDs that appear to have no relation to a device’s model or order numbers. However, a mix of persistence and good fortune led me to discover that /Contents/Resources/en.lproj/AirPortSettings.strings inside the Airport Utility app deciphers these IDs. Here they are:

0 = AirPort Base Station

1 = AirPort Base Station

102 = AirPort Express 802.11g

104 = AirPort Extreme 802.11n (1st Generation)

105 = AirPort Extreme 802.11n (2nd Generation)

106 = AirPort Time Capsule 802.11n (1st Generation)

107 = AirPort Express 802.11n (1st Generation)

108 = AirPort Extreme 802.11n (3rd Generation)

109 = AirPort Time Capsule 802.11n (2nd Generation)

113 = AirPort Time Capsule 802.11n (3rd Generation)

114 = AirPort Extreme 802.11n (4th Generation)

115 = AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation)

116 = AirPort Time Capsule 802.11n (4th Generation)

117 = AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation)

119 = AirPort Time Capsule 802.11ac

120 = AirPort Extreme 802.11ac

3 = AirPort Extreme 802.11g

So now you know the ProductID for your Airport, you can go back to version.xml and copy the correct URL of the firmware version you’re interested in. Paste it into a web browser and you’ll download the file. Then simply go back to Airport Utility, choose “other…” in that version drop-down menu and point Finder at your freshly downloaded .basebinary file.

Now cross your fingers that A) the downgrade works ok, and B) achieves what you were hoping for.

Oh, and remember, if having followed these instructions anything does go wrong with your base station, it is absolutely, categorically not my fault.

…

PS. Huge thanks to Laszlo Pusztai whose 2013 blog post on downgrading an Airport Extreme actually got us most of the way there.

Marco Arment has covered it before – see www.marco.org/2013/05/21/aebs-wifi-downgrade for details. ↩

The camera that follows you.

2015-05-16T09:23:22+00:00

Have you heard about Lily? I don’t know much about drones¹ but this looks like some mightily impressive stuff…

Great, isn’t it? Pure magic. I love the “no setup required” angle. In fact, it kind of reminds me of Apple a little. Taking an existing product and just making it simple enough for ANYONE to use and enjoy, while enthusiasts and experts miss the point entirely and moan about how it could be done cheaper, or be made more advanced, or allow for user modifications.

All that said, the above video is marketing material. Intrigued to note that Lily won’t ship until February 2016 I went looking for more information about its development. This Guardian Tech video is one of the first things I found…

I think it’s fair to say that the reality doesn’t quite live up to the marketing right now. Which probably comes as somewhat of a relief to GoPro. Anyway, I’ll definitely keep an eye on Lily – I like the idea a lot. I also look forward to the first video of someone throwing one off a cliff, having forgotten to check the battery is charged.

Drones? When I was a lad we called these things remote-controlled helicopters. ↩

Plugs, plugs, plugs.

2015-05-14T20:48:20+00:00

Regularly viewers will know that I have a bit of a thing for the British electric plug. Today a friend asked me to dig out the URL of a CNET article I once linked-to and it reminded me that i’ve been meaning to post this video for ages. It’s excellent. And was the piece of evidence I used to finally persuade my wife to stop using those stupid plastic “safety” socket covers. Enjoy, domestic electrical system fans!

Makes you proud, doesn’t it Britain? God bless the Queen, and all who sail in her.

Now, while I’m here writing about plugs I can’t go without mentioning the recent excitement about Apple’s new USB charger for the UK. What’s the excitement? Well, it has folding pins. Yes, FOLDING PINS! A few years ago I wondered if Apple might licence the design of the excellent Mu folding plug but it turns out they’d rather just make their own. What a beautiful, beautiful thing. Thank you Sir Jony.

Fixed embedded videos.

2015-05-14T20:27:52+00:00

It seems a load of the videos i’d embedded here over the years were broken and/or reliant on Flash Player (same thing?), so i’ve just been through the site and updated the embed code used. We’re now using WordPress’ very simple embed tag and hopefully you’ll now be able to watch these clips on any device (thanks to YouTube defaulting to HTML5 video). Let me know if you happen across any videos that are still broken.

I think my favourite re-discovery in carrying out this little bit of admin is Microsoft’s vision of technology of 2019. This video is now 6 years old and so we’re just 4 years away from this tech. Awesome.

Why is wifi onboard a train so slow?

2015-04-17T20:04:15+00:00

If you’ve ever tried to use wifi onboard a train in Britain you’ll know it to be an exercise in futility and frustration. I’m sure i’m not the only one that has heard or read someone complain about the experience, or even thought to themselves “I might as well just use 3G”.

You don’t have to massage the little grey cells for very long though to realise that 3G is all the train’s wifi service can be using for internet connectivity too. The tin box speeding through the British countryside isn’t plugged into an ethernet port back in Kings Cross, some spindle of cat5 cable viciously unwinding as it goes.

Icomera, a company you’ve almost certainly never heard of before, provides the wifi kit used by East Coast Trains. You can read all about their solution here, but this is the bit we’re interested in:

East Coast trains carry up to 500 passengers at speeds up to 125mph (200kmph) through 400 miles of urban, suburban and rural areas. The Icomera Moovbox M800 was identified as the only solution that could deliver the level of service required in the challenging environments. By combining up to eight 3G/HSPA modems with a broadband satellite link and implementing Icomera’s patented seamless switching technology, East Coast passengers can enjoy high speed Internet access throughout their journey.

Right, so the trains use a mix of 3G and satellite broadband – how fast is that “high speed internet access”?

Wikipedia has lots to tell us about 3G. The most pertinent information I took from that article before falling asleep is that to meet technical standards, 3G only need offer a peak speed of 0.2Mbps. Of course, many telecoms providers now offer speeds that far exceed that minimum standard but we’re not talking more than 22Mbps in an absolute best case scenario (HSPA+). Personal experience certainly tells me that it’s nowhere near that fast – I’m fairly sure the best speed test result i’ve ever had a 3G link was around 3Mbps. As for satellite broadband, Wikipedia suggests that the average download speed is just 1Mbps. Meanwhile, this article about the launch of “upto 50Mbps” broadband satellites suggests that the typical speed existing systems in the US give is around 12-15Mbps.

Now it’s time for some beer-mat mathematics. Let’s be hugely generous and assume that Icomera’s eight 3G modems each bring 22Mbps to the party and the satellite system a further 15Mbps. Further, let’s ignore how all these modems actually work together (and all associated technical overheads involved) and just assume their connection speeds easily sum together to provide us a nice round maximum speed that is made available to the train’s wifi users. I make that 191Mbps. Not bad, except it’s potentially being shared by hundreds of passengers. If only 100 passengers share it, that’s 1.9Mbps each. But you’ll only see 0.38Mbps if the train is full to capacity and everyone is trying to use wifi. And remember this is taking place in A RAINBOW-LADEN PERFECT DREAM WORLD OF IDEAL NETWORK CONNECTIVITY. 0.38Mbps in paradise. Hmm.

Come back to damp and dirty reality where those 3G modems are getting a shitty signal as they whip along at 100mph, all the various bits of networking kit involved have overheads, some part of the system is faulty, and there’s contention over those paltry 3G signals with all the mobile-phone-toting passengers who aren’t trying to use the train wifi (not to mention all those not on the train but connected to the same mast), and you’ll hopefully realise why you’re sat there complaining about the speed of the wireless connection.

Hopefully 4G will improve matters somewhat… but then again, there are more people, with more devices, looking to use such services. So maybe in future i’ll try to remember to pack a book.

…

PS. Most of the above also applies to the wifi we’re increasingly being offered aboard buses too. But i’m sure you’d already worked that out.

An update on the Google diet.

2015-03-29T16:02:24+00:00

I was surprised to discover that it’s almost two years since I started my Google diet, so I thought I’d write a quick follow-up to reflect on how it’s going.

The answer is, in short, very well. I’ve cut a lot of Google from my life and, as I predicted two years ago, I’ve barely noticed. I don’t need Google Analytics, I’m happy with WordPress’ own simple statistics for this blog. I don’t miss Calendar, Apple’s alternatives are more than adequate for my purposes. Google Chrome is still installed on some of my devices but I can’t remember the last time I had cause to launch it (Firefox is my current preference for browsing). I’ve replaced Google Maps with Apple’s offering, which I find is a perfectly good alternative (though admittedly I do occasionally have to hit maps.google.co.uk to use the incomparable StreetView). Google+ is history. Or at least I hope so; it doesn’t seem to take much to accidentally re-activate it. I’ve even dropped Google for search – the thing that brought me into Google’s arms all those years ago and that which I admitted I’d struggle to give up – and have been using DuckDuckGo full-time instead. I’d tried moving to DuckDuckGo in the past and not got on with it but in the last year or so it has dramatically improved. DuckDuckGo is now set as default in all my browsers (desktop and mobile) and I have been thoroughly impressed with it. I haven’t had cause to resort to googling once. Seriously, it’s great.

The bad news is that I’ve not broken completely free of Google yet. The reason? Gmail. I thought I’d grab all my archived mail from Google (for posterity) and be able to ditch their service but it hasn’t worked out that way. Partly it’s because the account is still tied to some other services I’ve not got around to updating yet. Partly it’s because friends and family still send me messages to Gmail, despite me only sending them stuff from my iCloud address now. The main reason though is that I just can’t trust iCloud mail. I don’t know if it’s generally flaky or an overly aggressive content/keyword filter but sometimes my mail just doesn’t seem to get through. I don’t recall (perhaps “know of” would be a better term to use) many problems receiving mail but I really can’t trust iCloud to deliver my messages. They appear in the sent folder but never arrive. I would blame the recipients except that it has happened with things I’ve sent to myself. Bothersome.

So if you’re no longer interested in being Google’s Product, I’d say it is reasonably easy to loosen their grip… but it might not be so simple to extricate yourself fully. I suppose in the end it comes down to willpower and determination. As ever, a diet is probably a good start but a change of lifestyle is better.

Removing duplicate photos in iPhoto.

2015-03-25T12:37:50+00:00

Apple’s iPhoto software very cleverly checks whether you really want to import that photo that you already have in your library. Nevertheless I always manage to happen across duplicated photos from time to time. And when I do, I always think “Oh, i’ll just check if there are any more” then promptly waste 3-4 minutes checking and re-checking the various menus and buttons for the “Find Duplicates” function. It doesn’t exist. There’s one in iTunes but not in iPhoto.

If you’re similarly afflicted, I can confirm that the tiny little AppleScript available at blog.spoolz.com/2008/11/03/iphoto-applescript-to-remove-duplicates/ is excellent and, despite being published in 2008, still works with iPhoto 9.6 under OS X Yosemite. Just remember to select a bunch of photos in iPhoto before running the script. I definitely didn’t forget to do that and sit wondering why it hadn’t worked. Anyway, thank you Karl!

Now, whether the script will work, could be re-written to work or, indeed, is even required in the upcoming Photos app for OS X remains to be seen.

Not dead.

2015-03-25T12:19:48+00:00

Hello website visitor. Hello person whose RSS reader I’ve just turned up in.

I noticed that it has been nearly a year since my last post here and I felt I should write something to avoid it actually reaching a whole 12 months of neglect. I do keep thinking of things to write about – and there are plenty of hurriedly jotted words, sentences and links sat in the WordPress Drafts folder that are testament to this – but never get around to turning them into something suitable for public consumption. I won’t make any rash promises about updating this thing more regularly but I am going to try to go through some of the half-baked drafts and see if anything is worth posting.

Thanks for reading.

iPod.

2014-04-15T23:32:18+00:00

iPod. It’s a name that I often find myself idly pondering.

I always thought that “iPod” was a fantastic, forward-looking bit of branding from Apple. It was a name which would allow the humble MP3 player to evolve and advance way, way beyond just audio. Add photos. Add videos. Add games. Add PDA functions, telephony and internet connectivity. Add anything. And all with an ever-increasing storage capacity. It was clear that this vessel, this capsule, this pod, might one day carry your entire digital life. So I was very surprised and a little disappointed when the name was changed with the introduction of the iPhone and the clever iPod marque apparently demoted. I assumed, being left to gradually and graciously fade away.

Indeed, Horace Dediu, the king of analysing all figures related to Apple, recently predicted that the iPod as we know it will die in 2015.

However…

Bob Cringely still foresees an Apple device we’ll carry around our life on:

It should be no surprise, then, that Apple — a company known for its market timing — has just started shipping a new Mac Pro. That amazing computer is overkill for 95 percent of the desktop market. It represents the new desktop PC archetype, which is a very expensive hugely powerful machine tightly aimed at the small population of professional users who still need a desktop. Unless you are editing HD video all day every day, you don’t need a new desktop PC.

What the rest of us will get are new phones and whole new classes of peripherals. The iPhone in your pocket will become your desktop whenever you are within range of your desktop display, keyboard and mouse. These standalone devices will be Apple’s big sellers in 2014 and big sellers for HP and Dell in 2015 and beyond. The next iPod/iPhone/iPad will be a family of beautiful AirPlay displays that will serve us just fine for at least five years linked to an ever-changing population of iPhones.

It’s an idea that i’ve had myself before now, so unsurprisingly I need little convincing. And there’s no reason that a future iPhone device could not return to using its ancestral moniker. Apple have surprised me before on this front and could do it again.

Meanwhile, there are lots and lots and lots of rumours of an “iWatch” or other wearable device(s) coming soon from Apple. As Gruber rightly notes, you can easily see this sort of product adopting the iPod name.

So perhaps, in one way or another, the iPod brand does have a future and could yet refer to the device we carry our whole digital life around on. I do hope so.

The Finer Things.

2014-04-15T20:48:10+00:00

Just taking a moment to signpost David Chartier’s excellent site, Finer Things in Tech. It’s a great resource, highlighting some of the neat little details that you might have overlooked in software you use every day.

My mentioning this now has, of course, absolutely nothing to do with me recently sharing a little discovery about iOS’ Touch ID on the site.

Cheap headphones.

2013-11-22T13:49:54+00:00

In my recent review of RHA’s MA350 earphones I concluded a paragraph lamenting the vast and frankly overwhelming choice of budget headphones like this:

Limiting your search by price range, manufacturer/brand and so on obviously helps a great deal but you’re still left with hundreds of choices. Picking through them wasn’t a chore i was all that bothered about completing.

So, despite personally having settled on the RHA pods for now, I was very pleased to learn (via twitter) that somebody has actually put in the time and effort to perform this unenviable task for us. Hurray for the internet! If you’re in the market for a new pair of reasonably-priced headphones, go read The Wirecutter’s “Best In-Ear Headphones Under $30” piece. They’ve set some perhaps questionable criteria in order to quickly reduce the numbers involved but overall it is an excellent bit of work. I’m certainly not holding my breath waiting for something more comprehensive.

Sadly, the winning headphones – Panasonic’s RP-TCM125 Ergo Fit – don’t appear to be available in the UK, or at least they don’t go by that model number. On this side of the pond, RP-HJE125E look to have the same bud design and same specs, except there’s no mention of an inline microphone. Meanwhile, RP-TCM120 look like they have the correct single-button mic but the buds don’t look quite right. I’ve found no reviews of either of these and thus no clues to their quality, though the reception for Panasonic’s (again very similar) RP-HJE120-E1 on Amazon is pretty good. Best of all though, any of these Panasonic headphones can be had for well under £10. Probably worth a punt if you’re looking.

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PS. I’m also still rather enamoured with the look of the Philips SHE6000/10 earphones, a pair which again get very favourable customer reviews. I would definitely like to try these too.

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Update: The Wirecutter’s reviewer, Lauren Dragan, suggests that the Panasonic RP-HJE125 are the UK equivalent of the RP-TCM125. The uncertainty over a microphone remains but you can’t really complain when paying just £6.

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Update, July 2015: I bought a pair of the RP-HJE125s some time ago, you can read my quick review here. Also, note that the above “Best In-Ear Headphones Under $30” link now re-directs to a newer, updated Wirecutter review. If you want to see the original review text I was referring to here, make use of the Wayback Machine.

The Bear and the Hare.

2013-11-18T16:16:19+00:00

I guess by now you’re likely to be familiar with John Lewis’ Christmas TV ad, The Bear and the Hare.

Just in case you aren’t, here it is…

Whether you like or dislike the advert (or couldn’t care less), I expect you assumed it was created with CG. Yes? Well, you’d be wrong. Rather incredibly, they’ve drawn those 2D characters and then animated them with stop-motion on a 3D set. An extremely lengthy and delicate operation requiring thousands of models but one which has yielded a beautiful result. I really admire this sort of work, even if it is just to help a big name retailer start hawking Christmas in November.

Creative Review has the full story, which I fully recommend you giving over 10 minutes to.

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Update: The original John Lewis video seems to have been made unavailable, so i’ve swapped the above embed for someone else’s copy…

On ideas.

2013-10-30T09:49:01+00:00

In June I visited Sheffield Hallam University’s Creative Spark exhibitions and particularly enjoyed looking around the works of the Product Design students. There was a lot of smart thinking on display and several of the designs caught my attention, especially Samuel Carr’s Life Collection kitchen products and Peter Larkham’s Branch lighting system. It was an interesting event and provided a useful insight into how our young designers see the future¹, but I thought little more of it until a few weeks later when i saw Tile:

I was immediately reminded of something i’d seen at Creative Spark – Pin by Jordan Willingham.

Clearly, these two products are not identical (and in more ways than the fact that Tile is nearing production whereas Pin is little more than a design) but the idea behind each is very similar and conceptually they work in much the same way. Had Pin not been developed with a focus on one particular purpose then I suspect Jordan may have arrived at a product even more similar to Tile.

More recently, the web seems to have become rather excited by Dave Hakkens’ PhoneBloks concept.

It is a very appealing idea but flawed and largely impractical in many ways, the chief of which was immediately highlighted by John Gruber:

“But even if Phonebloks works as advertised, you’d still be throwing out old components on a regular basis, and the march of progress is such that it won’t take long until your base board is outdated too.”

Which is exactly the same thought i’d had some months earlier when i saw Oliver Rooker’s Click concept at the Creative Spark exhibition.

Again, Click is not identical to PhoneBloks but it is clearly a result of the same train of thought. The ideas share the same pros and same cons. Furthermore, this idea itself isn’t particularly new – it’s the modular desktop PC concept that has been mulled for years and years (including by me) but applied to a smartphone. Isn’t it weird how these things occur to people apparently independently?

I’ve long found it peculiar how similar ideas or innovations crop up at around the same time. I guess the most famous examples of this would be Darwin and Wallace independently formulating theories of evolution, Bell and Gray separately applying for the patent of the telephone on the same day, or Edison and Tesla’s well-documented competition over the distribution of electricity².

Are such events a result of two (or more) people having had very similar life/work experiences? The same inspirations? Have they simply studied the same academic texts? Absorbed the same body of knowledge? Are they subconsciously copying the someone else’s prior art? Or maybe just unashamedly stealing it? Could it be a complete coincidence? Or perhaps some combination of all of the above?

I doubt we can say for sure. And i doubt i’m the first to think this.

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Update: Here’s an excellent piece on this subject by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker from 2008. It’s quite long but a really interesting read.

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Update #2: While this blog post sat in my Drafts folder, Motorola have gone and teamed up with Dave Hakkens (and community) to work together on the PhoneBloks idea. They’re calling it Project Ara. Colour me intrigued. (But probably still rather pessimistic.)

Modular. The future is definitely modular, according to the Creative Spark exhibition at least. Almost all of the product designs had some modular aspect. Or maybe modular-ism is an idea that permanently floats around design undergrads? Like chicken pox around toddlers, the wearing of baseball caps backwards around 10 year olds, and that feeling of having invented all things sexual around teenagers. ↩
and more. ↩

Disbelief.

2013-09-13T12:38:22+00:00

Apropos of nothing – though perhaps meaningful at some later date – a powerful little snippet from “Country of the Blind” by Christopher Brookmyre:

Disbelief was a reaction borne of so much wolf-crying, with the public so desensitised by the hyperbole with which the most tedious events were related (and the deceitful exaggeration with which the most harmless quote could be twisted or recontextualised to create “a sensation” where there was barely a story), that when something truly remarkable happened, you just couldn’t deal with it. The media, having robbed every superlative of its meaning through misuse and over-use, did not have a vocabulary with which to convey such import. Once you’ve used up all your language of astonishment on Hugh Grant getting his cock sucked, how do you express the shock of thirty schoolchildren being gunned down in a gym hall…?